Foreign Workers - Immigration Reform on the Senate Agenda
By: Matt, November 11th, 2005
Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) announced recently that the U.S. Senate will bring an immigration bill to the Senate floor early next year. The bill will focus on border security issues, employment-related immigration laws and drafting of a new guest worker plan. Debate over the handling of an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. is expected to be most contentious issue. Rules of the debate have been accepted by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and John Cornyn (R-TX), who are each sponsoring competing bills in the Senate.
Among the primary differences between the already competing bills is the treatment of undocumented immigrants, with the bill sponsored by McCain and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) requiring undocumented immigrants to pay a $2,000 fine and wait six years to apply for a green card. Such undocumented immigrants would not, however, be required to leave the country in the interim. The Cornyn/Kyl bill, meanwhile, would create a guest worker program that undocumented immigrants could apply to, but that would also require them to leave the country within five years.
Business groups have long stressed the need for a comprehensive guest worker program and are pushing for a program that allows maximum freedom to undocumented immigrants seeking employment in the United States. Thomas Donahue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has noted that “Our demographic reality is that we face a current and future worker shortage, and it will be impossible to deal with these challenges without making it easier for foreign workers to gain legal employment in the United States.
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